


Puppetmaster

by unrealkinkster (criticalkink)



Category: Geek & Sundry RPF
Genre: Bondage, F/M, Pre-Negotiated BDSM, straitjacket
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-10-17 14:49:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17562509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/criticalkink/pseuds/unrealkinkster
Summary: Realization begins to trickle into her mind. “This isn’t the actual shoot, is it.”“You wish,” Ivan echoes her, and yanks the straitjacket’s sleeves, tugging the last of the arm buckles tight and whipping closed the ones that march down her back. “This is something to give you a little practice at horror gaming... scaredy cat.”





	Puppetmaster

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Fitting](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14233983) by [anemptymargin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anemptymargin/pseuds/anemptymargin). 



> CW: straitjacket bondage, D/s, may read like dubcon at the start but this _is_ a pre-negotiated scene, threatened eye trauma, classic Ivan looming.
> 
> Originally posted on the kmeme [here](https://criticalkink.dreamwidth.org/1777.html?thread=545265#cmt545265).

The straitjacket, probably pushing the limits of what Xander could fit into, hangs loosely on Erika’s slight frame. Ivan moves around her, tightening buckles as she stands barefoot in the middle of the set, a small white-walled room with a bland generic single bed in a corner. Because Selina’s the one who was actually institutionalized, Erika gets that one extra prop; the others all shot in front of a very plain wall.  
  
“If anyone saw just this part as a preview they’d get totally the wrong impression,” she says.  
  
Ivan doesn’t respond but crosses her arms by tugging on the straps; Erika follows his lead and obediently makes herself semi-comfortable, as much as she can with the heavy canvas pressing into her skin. Her white tank top affords her some protection but the jacket’s  _scratchy_  and she’s already looking forward to getting out of it.  
  
There’s a scraping sound from the doorway as someone brings in some large piece of equipment, probably a camera rig, that Erika can’t see because she’s currently facing the bed. She does, however, notice that someone has made an odd addition to the room’s decor: a single white rose lies upon the bed’s one flat pillow.  
  
“Ivan, what’s with the rose?”  
  
He doesn’t say anything, and Erika feels the first thrill of fear down her spine. She’s seen  _Dread_ , she knows a little of what to expect from him, and yet she can’t quite get a handle on what he’s up to.  
  
He pulls her back against him, turning them both as the piece of equipment is moved across the room so that she can’t yet see it, and whispers, “Scared yet?”  
  
“You wish,” Erika says, but his lips are so close to her throat that he can probably feel the uptick in her pulse. She can certainly feel his mocking smile in response. Realization begins to trickle into her mind. “This isn’t the actual shoot, is it.”  
  
“You wish,” Ivan echoes her, and  _yanks_  the straitjacket’s sleeves, tugging the last of the arm buckles tight and whipping closed the ones that march down her back. “This is something to give you a little practice at horror gaming... scaredy cat.”  
  
Erika turns her head to see if whoever brought the noisy equipment in is still in the room, ready to ask for aid, and sees only the closing door. Ivan lets her go--Erika falls to her knees--and moves to lock the door. When he comes back to her he stands over her just looking down for a long moment, and Erika feels fear rise in her throat.  
  
“Don’t bother screaming.” He sounds disinterested as he picks her up off the floor by the back of the jacket, like she’s a bag of groceries.  
  
“I assume nobody’s around to hear,” Erika says sarcastically, unable to resist an attempt at kicking him.  
  
Ivan just lifts her higher and holds her away so that she misses. “They’re around. They just know we’re filming horror, and that could mean all kinds of noises.” He carries her over to the bed, Erika flailing the whole time, and plops her down on her back.  
  
The thing that was brought in is a freestanding pull-up rack. For some reason it has fake ivy twined around the uprights. For a reason that makes much more sense, there are coils of rope hanging from one end of the crossbar, and Erika goes bright red as she wonders what whoever brought it in thought they were going to do.  
  
They were probably right.  
  
Ivan fusses with the ropes, getting them knotted to and hanging from the crossbar to his liking. Erika tries kicking him again and he catches her foot, producing a wide canvas tiedown from under the thin mattress and restraining her by the ankle. He barely looks at her, like he's just swatting a pesky fly before going back to weaving the ropes together.  
  
When he's done there's still a couple of hanks of rope left. Erika looks at them and the rig and bites her lip. Ivan catches her expression and grasps one of the uprights, pulling himself up to actually stand on the bed, pristine black shoes either side of Erika's thighs, before lowering himself to kneel over her, both hands gripping the crossbar. He's not speaking, but when he pulls up, initially just a couple of inches so he's almost swaying over her, then right up til his chin’s over the bar--with a soft grunt of effort that's surprisingly arousing--the rack barely moves. He holds his position for a count of five and then lowers himself back down, ass resting on her thighs.  
  
Erika's so busy being relieved by this demonstration of the strength of the rig that Ivan's got her pants unbuttoned and is meditatively fingering the mint green lace on her panties before she snaps back to the present.  
  
“Hey, whoa, what the hell?” Her voice comes out embarrassingly squeaky and she curses herself.  
  
Ivan just looks down at her, fingers creeping up to the small strip of belly exposed where the jacket has ridden up.  
  
When he begins to speak she understands why he's been so quiet thus far. Why waste words when using a select few will heighten the effect?  
  
“A Storyteller’s role is to captivate their audience, to make them feel deep emotions.” He leans forward, his weight solid on her, and Erika trembles. His breath is warm against her lips, but he doesn't kiss her. Instead, he retrieves the rose and sits back up. Now she's looking at it she sees it's white, long-stemmed, with some but not all of the thorns removed, and what looks like a lobster clasp affixed to the end of the stem with silver wire. “The three base emotions are love, hate... and fear.” He strokes the soft petals against her cheek. Erika’s practically holding her breath waiting for his next words. “The best stories incorporate all three, often in combination.” He turns the stem and brings one wicked curved thorn into view, maybe three inches from Erika, and Erika stops breathing altogether. “I always try to create the best stories.”  
  
And he begins moving the thorn toward her eye.   
  
Erika breaks when it's still an inch away, screaming shrilly and wildly shaking her head. Ivan puts the rose down beside her head and cups her cheeks in his hands, stilling her thrashing. His mouth comes down over hers, muffling her, and Erika catches his lower lip between hers, turning it into an actual kiss for a second before she snarls, lips drawing back, and her teeth sink into his lip.  
  
Ivan pokes her temple with a thorn, and Erika lets go, panting.  
  
“That's hate and fear,” Ivan says, sitting back up. “Fight and flight, respectively.” His hands move again to her cheeks, thumbs sweeping away two errant tears, and he smiles benevolently down at her. “By the time we're done, you'll love me.”  
  
Erika glares at him. “I don't think so.”  
  
“Hate, fear, love,” Ivan says. “Fight, flee... fuck.”  
  
“They're not the same thing,” Erika retorts.  
  
Ivan slips the stem of the rose under the back of her neck, adjusts it so the white petals are under her chin, and clips the stem’s end just below the lightly scented flower. “You need to let me finish the story before you get to judge that, and we've barely begun.”  
  
Erika's heart is racing, her breathing quick and light and  _angry_  and, while Ivan gets off of her and goes back to peeling her tight tartan pants off, she ducks her head, trying to dig her chin under the stupid rose collar and pull it off.  
  
The restraint stays on her ankle even once Ivan's got her pants off the other leg and dragged down to the knee on the restrained one, and Erika looks up, having managed to snag one petal between her teeth, raising an eyebrow.  
  
“While I'm sure doing a frog tie with you trying to kick me in the face would entertain  _you_ , I'd prefer not to try it.”  
  
Erika thinks she's misheard for a second but, when Ivan leans over her to begin binding her ankle to her thigh, bending her knee, she understands.   
  
“Oops,” he says deadpan once that leg is restrained. “Forgot these.” He spider-walks his fingertips up her inner thighs, eyes sparkling with good humor as she trembles, and teases along the lace of her panties. “Well, well... I'm already not sure your little objection about loving holds up.” He goes to his knees beside the bed and buries his face against her mound, inhaling deeply. “That's a pretty scent, little petal,” he murmurs.  
  
“Fuck  _off_ ,” Erika says, spitting out the bit of flower.  
  
She feels his tongue pressed against the wet spot between her thighs, slowly dragging her taste out of the fabric, and part of her wants to call the scene off right now and just do fun things with that tongue and her wetness and the bulge in his neatly pressed pants. But the greater part of her--scaredy-cat, true, even little petal, but  _final girl_ \--wants to go on.  
  
She refuses to give him the pleasure of a vocal reaction to his tongue, even when it dips briefly under the cloth, but when he brings out the round-ended scissors and carefully snips each side of her panties open so he can remove them without undoing his rope work,  _that_  she protests, almost losing her grip on the scene.  
  
“ _Ivan_ , those were twenty bucks!”  
  
He looks briefly ashamed, then rather more startled as the price sinks in, and murmurs “fuck, sorry,” before regaining his composure. “I'll be sure to make it up to you,” he says, putting the scissors aside and giving her a heartfelt apologetic look.  
  
Then her friend Ivan's gone and the Storyteller is back.

Erika feels exposed as he pulls her panties off and drapes them over the railing at the foot of the bed; more so as he begins binding her other leg, calmly focusing on the ropework as though he hasn’t just spread her thighs enough to be able to look straight at the gleam of slick arousal between them. He stops halfway through to roll his sleeves up to mid-forearm and Erika hitches a worried breath, wondering if the gesture’s to precede a slap or something more intimate, but he's just getting them out of the way.  
  
Ivan finishes the frog tie and looks down at her to admire his handiwork. Erika experimentally tries to close her thighs; she can bring them together a little bit more, but not much. She wasn’t expecting to be  _comfortable_  bound ankle to thigh, but it’s surprisingly not too bad.  
  
Then Ivan spreads her wide again, passing a cord from each ankle up to her elbows with a jingle of metal rings, and this time she can’t close her legs at all.  
  
It’s embarrassing how aroused she is. There’s still that undercurrent of fear, true, but his level gaze on her, now slowly roaming over her body from rose collar down to wet pink folds, is filled with heat. Erika can feel the hairs on her arms prickling, her nipples hardening, and squirms a little in the confines of the jacket, trying to relieve the tension.  
  
“I’m going to make you fly,” Ivan says, voice darkly promising, and the overhead ropes come into play, attaching to she’s not even sure what on the back of the jacket. He gives them good solid tugs before he hoists her so much as an inch off the bed, silently demonstrating their strength. Erika nods. This is a multi-layered trust exercise and that trust goes both ways; Ivan has to know that Erika’s all right with each step before continuing.  
  
She feels exhilaration on top of everything else as he lifts her in earnest. Being manhandled across the room was one thing; this is entirely different. Dangling in the air, feeling the tug at her back but also the way her slight weight is distributed across the ropes. Ivan raises her to a foot off the bed, lowers her almost right back down as a test of the ropes’ flexibility, and then raises her again til she’s two feet off the bed and swaying a little before coiling the ropes around blunt hooks on the uprights and tying them off to keep her in the air.  
  
“What a pretty little petal, tangled up in my web,” Ivan says softly, watching her with dark intent eyes. His earlier formal disinterest is long gone. With a touch he sets her slowly spinning. Erika moans, disorientation quick to grip her desire-dazed mind. She can’t turn far before the ropes cling to each other and turn her back the other way, but it’s plenty.  
  
Ivan picks up the petal that she spat out from the white hospital waffle blanket that covers the bed. Reaching between her legs, his eyes lock on hers as he slowly rubs it along her slick vulva. Erika whimpers and closes her eyes, but she can still feel it when he presses the petal firmly against her clit, rubbing a couple of tiny circles before withdrawing his hand and leaving the petal stuck to her.  
  
“I think this story’s beginning to center too much on one emotion,” Ivan says, and his voice has gone from darkly seductive to cold. He loosens his tie and pulls it free, and though Erika tries to tilt her head away the silk drops over her eyes and all she gets is a couple of rose scratches for her troubles as Ivan knots the blindfold in place.  
  
Darkness falls, and so does silence.  
  
“Ivan?” Erika asks after what she thinks is a minute.  
  
The darkness says nothing. Erika strains her ears but she doesn’t think she can even hear him  _breathing_. He didn’t leave the room; she would have heard the door. But she can’t hear him or anything else, and it makes the darkness close in tighter.  
  
“Ivan?” Her voice is small; scaredy-cat is emerging again. “Ivan, talk to me.”  
  
The silence continues. Her skin feels like it’s creeping and maybe he’s touching her legs with something and maybe she’s just imagining it. She’s beginning to tremble, and it’s making her swing, and the dizzying disorientation is worse in the dark.  
  
“Ivan,  _please_!”  
  
“Boo,” Ivan whispers immediately next to her ear, and Erika shrieks.  
  
 _Now_  she can hear him, because as she gets her shit together and stops screaming, he’s laughing; a low, nasty chuckle that sends shivers down her spine. “Oh, scaredy-cat.” He gives her a small push that starts her swinging harder and Erika shrieks again, feeling the world whirl unseen around her.  
  
After a long moment of swinging in space, she hears the squeak of bedsprings and then his arms are around her, bringing her back to equilibrium. His breath is warm on her ear, and there’s a rapidity to it that speaks of excitement, of delight at seeing her in this predicament.  
  
“Look at you, you beautiful creature.” His voice holds the same note of enjoyment. “Where would you even go, if you  _could_  get down? Would you crawl out of here to seek help, even if it meant being seen so helpless...” His fingers spider-walk up her thigh again. “So helpless and so  _wet_.”  
  
He’s barely grazing her outer labia and yet Erika can feel that his fingertips are practically gliding over her skin.  
  
“There’d be someone,” she whispers.  
  
“There’d be someone who wouldn’t understand,” Ivan counters. “Don’t you think you’re safer in here... with me?” His lips caress the side of her head, where the newly shorn stubble means she can feel his mouth warm on her scalp.  
  
“No.” Erika tilts her head away from him and feels the thorns bite into her throat again. She’d almost forgotten about the rose collar. “In here, maybe. With you, no.”  
  
Ivan draws in a long breath and lets it out in a satisfied sigh that has a definite sexual quality to it. “I don’t think that’s true.”  
  
Erika gives up on words. She knows where his face is from his breath. She turns her head and spits at him.  
  
“Fuck!” She hears the shifting of the mattress as he pulls back. She doesn’t know whether she hit him or not but feels terribly smug at the reaction that she’s elicited. “Oh, petal, you’re going to regret that.” There’s a moment where she doesn’t know what he’s doing and then the scent of her own arousal comes strongly to her. “Open your mouth.” Lace brushes against her lips; Erika presses them together and shakes her head. “Open it!”  
  
“Mh,” Erika says, shaking her head again.  
  
Ivan’s fingers find her throat, but it’s only with the barest of light touches, a soft press of his thumb under her chin. “Open it,” he says for the third time, and Erika opens her mouth, tasting herself on the damp satin that makes contact with her tongue as Ivan pushes the small bundle between her lips.  
  
“No more spitting. And no more of that silly screaming.” He cups her face between his hands and kisses her forehead. “Well, I suppose you  _can_  scream if you like, although you’ll only get a sore throat.”  
  
Erika makes a helpless muffled noise through the gag and hears another of those sighs. When he speaks again his voice holds more than a hint of desire.  
  
“What are you really afraid of here, scaredy-cat?” One finger traces along the top of the blindfold, then down her nose, before coming to rest on her upper lip. “The darkness?” Erika shakes her head. “The disorientation?” He spins her roughly and she squeals, but shakes her head again once he pulls her back to stillness. “Me touching you?” His hands grip her thighs, pulling her against him; she can feel he’s still wearing his shirt and quite possibly everything else as well. She makes a negatory noise and shakes her head for a third time.  
  
“Or...” His fingertip nudges against her clit, dislodging the petal, which flutters to the blanket. “Are you afraid I’ll  _stop_  touching you? That I’ll leave you here like this, wet and needy with no recourse to relief?”  
  
Erika nods.  
  
“Ahhhh.” Ivan kisses her forehead again, and then the squeak and shift of springs announces that he’s relocating. She still can’t see him, of course, but every thrill of fear, every pulse of hot anger, is turning to desire, and dear god if he really does leave her now she’s going to have to chew through the canvas and get herself off. She makes a helpless sound of  _wanting_  and hears him laugh.  
  
She also hears the sounds of his belt buckle, and a zip, and two thuds as his shoes hit the floor. Suddenly she’s gripped by the need to  _see_  him, to  _touch_  him, and her hands flex uselessly inside the straitjacket.  
  
A hand touches hers through the stiff material. “Cramps?”  
  
“Nh.”  
  
“Numb?”  
  
“Nh.”  
  
“Just stretching?”  
  
“Nh.”  
  
Ivan pulls her panties out of her mouth. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”  
  
“Want to touch you,” Erika says plaintively.  
  
“Do you, now?” He sounds amused. “You’re not interested in finding out what else I have in mind for you?”  
  
“Of course I am.”  
  
“Then choose.” His breath and then his whiskers tickle her lips as he offers her a soft kiss. “There’s no time that you can’t change your mind.” He touches the rose, plucks a single petal, and brushes it against her cheek. “Just say the word.”  
  
Erika doesn’t have to think it over. “I don’t want to interrupt the story.”  
  
Ivan kisses her again. “Thank you for trusting me,” he murmurs.  
  
He still gags her once more, but this time she thinks she can work it loose on her own if she wants to. It’s nice to have the option on the table; maybe she can turn his own dirty talk back on him.

Then he’s slipping a finger inside her, taking her quite by surprise--she was expecting more emotional turmoil--and making her moan. His thumb is on her clit and though she can’t see him she can picture his studious expression as he touches her, seeing what she can take and what makes her squirm for more. It’s only when he pushes a second finger into her that she realizes just how turned on this combination of rollercoaster feelings and physical play has made her; she can  _hear_  his fingers move slick in her, and he lets out a satisfied, “Ahhhh, good,” that’s on the verge of just being a groan of lust.  
  
His fingers go away and Erika makes a disgruntled noise. She hears the soft slurp of him licking his fingers clean and starts hoping like hell that he comes back for a proper taste, but he shifts away. Her face must show her frustration despite the blindfold and gag because he lets out another low laugh.  
  
There’s some more motion, below her this time, and now she can hear more urgent wet sounds, skin on skin, and sighing. There’s no way he’s not already rock hard after playing with her so much, so he’s up to something else.  
  
Then the ropes holding her up shake, and she’s moving--vertically, this time, instead of around in circles. One side drops a little faster than the other and she feels the slippery press of his cock against her left thigh first; he’s definitely stroked lube over himself. More than he needs to, considering her state of arousal. Why?  
  
The ropes steady once more with Erika hovering just above Ivan, and when he begins working the head of his cock against her, impossibly slick and teasing and not quite where she wants it,  _needs_  it, she starts keening softly.  
  
When he relents and slips inside her, she feels like she’s  _too_  wet, like she’s not going to get far without more touching, and he lets her attempt to rub against him, to take him deeper, to  _anything_ , for a good minute, until she’s writhing in frustration and just about ready to try spitting at him again to see if he’ll at least slap her ass or something.  
  
She can tell when he unhooks the ropes again because there’s another lopsided jerk and suddenly he’s driven deeper into her. No--she’s dropped further onto  _him_. She hears him groan and tries to rock atop him while he’s still getting the ropes figured out, but he’s too quick for that. Erika finds herself rising again until he’s barely in her, just the head pressed within her entrance.  
  
“Look at you.” His voice is thick with lust and she doesn’t think it’s even remotely an act anymore. “Precious petal. Are you still scared I’ll leave you wanting?” She shakes her head, hears him laugh. “Maybe you should be.”  
  
A moment later she understands his meaning, as he begins to manipulate the ropes. Unable to exert any real movement in her own right, she’s left with only the strange but not unpleasant sensation of being moved  _on_  him. It must be hell on his arms, though she’s seen the strength that they hold, but he seems to be holding out all right. Her wetness and the lube mean that she moves on him easily, too easily for her liking, and how he can stand the slick, almost frictionless tease she doesn’t know.  
  
“My pretty puppet, all tied up in my web.” His voice is dark, caressing, but she can hear the undercurrent of tension that speaks of quickening need. She can feel it in his cock, too, sliding within her; he’s hot and hard and for the first time she realizes that in his own way he’s been getting every bit as turned on as her through this whole scene, and if she’s delirious with wanting then he’s probably in the same place. “Dance for me, darling doll of mine.” He pulls her up, almost right off him again, and Erika tries in vain to move down, to take him back in. Though she knows she’s only just above the bed now, she feels as though she’s flying miles up, only the solidity of his cock inside her anchoring her to the ground. A little lower, and he holds her there until she’s bucking her hips frantically, needing,  _craving_  more than half of his length.  
  
“ _Please_!” The word bursts from her lips; she hadn’t even realized that she’d spit out the gag until it does. “Please, oh, please...”  
  
“You want the teasing to stop, puppet?” Rough quick words. No finesse.  
  
“ _Yes_!”  
  
“Sure?”  
  
“ _Please_!”  
  
For a few moments longer her torments her with long slippery strokes, but she can tell from the quality of his breathing that he’s close. He lowers her right down, and  _fuck_  he fills her up so nicely, and Erika feels his hips lift, feels the slow hard pulse of him inside her as his persona shatters in that moment and he cries out her name--  
  
\--and then he lifts her back up off him. Just. Right off him, leaving her empty and aching and, after a dazed moment of figuring out that technically he  _did_  stop teasing her, swearing.  
  
“Oh fuck, Ivan, fuck you, damn it! I need--I want--”  
  
Her protests end there because he ties the ropes off again, scoots down the bed in a rustle of blankets, and  _oh fuck okay_  starts licking her clean.  _Really_  clean, really thoroughly, the flat of his tongue working in broad sweeps over her labia to clean off his own essence, and then as she begins to gasp and whimper, pushing inside her to curl and move there.  
  
For some reason,  _this_  is what triggers the thought  _Ivan, you kinky bastard_  for her, and Erika starts giggling helplessly. He’s restrained and suspended and otherwise messed with her, but licking his own come out of her? Yeah, apparently according to her mind,  _that’s_  the tipping point.  
  
She’s still giggling when he seals his lips around her clit, tongue sliding against her with certainty, and the sound turns to gasping as heat thrills through her. The gasps turn to low urgent cries as he brings her close, and for one moment he takes his mouth off her and she thinks he’s going to start in again with denying her what she so desperately wants--  
  
\--and then his mouth closes over her again, lips and tongue working hard, and Erika no longer feels any connection with the ground at all; she’s hanging suspended in a place of pure pleasure that rocks her body, tearing cries of delight from her as loud as her screams of fear earlier.  
  
She’s still trembling with aftershocks and he keeps going, pushing her over that edge again, and her cries turn back to gasps as breathing eludes her, too overwhelmed by the full-body reaction he’s wringing out of her to let such silly things as basic autonomic functions cross her mind.  
  
And then he does it  _again_ , and it’s good,  _so_  good, but it’s also  _enough_ , she’s getting uncomfortably close to the point where she’ll be way overstimulated, and she manages to get out the words, “Stop, Ivan, stop, the end.”  
  
He pulls the ropes, lifts her up, and rolls out from underneath her before lowering her gently to the mattress. There’s a very brief pause as he evidently puts his clothing back together, probably so his pants don’t fall down while he’s untying her. That’s okay; Erika lets herself flop onto her back, feeling embraced by the warm darkness.  
  
“Okay, petal.” She has no idea how he regained his composure so fast but he certainly seems to have done so, his fingers skimming over her thighs as he unties each ankle. “Careful now... stretch out slowly. Any pins and needles?”  
  
“No.” Erika flexes her legs, points her toes, taking her time. She’s surprised by how comfortable the frog tie was, though she has the feeling she’ll have the rope imprinted on her skin for some time. That’s fine; it isn’t anywhere anyone’s going to see.  
  
“Do you want to sit up, or do you want to roll over?”  
  
“Am I going to fall if I roll?”  
  
“Not if I help you.”  
  
It’s less of a roll than a shuffle, and a lot of it depends on Ivan more or less shoveling her over onto her stomach, but Erika’s growing quite accustomed to him lifting her around, and in fact is also growing to enjoy it.  
  
The buckles at her back come undone, and she feels the sleeves come loose, and right then her right shoulder seizes up. She lets out a cry of pain.  
  
“Where?” Ivan asks immediately.  
  
“Right shoulder.”  
  
He gathers her up into his arms. “Can you stand? Just for a moment?”  
  
“Yes. Wait.” Erika plants one foot on the floor, her shoulder singing in agony, and braces her other knee on the bed. “Okay.”  
  
Ivan’s fingers are quick on the buckles and he doesn’t need to tell her to unfold her arms carefully. She’s maybe a little too quick to straighten her left arm and it twinges a little, but she wants her left hand functioning as fast as possible to rub her right shoulder when Ivan eases the jacket all the way off.  
  
“No, petal, let me.” Ivan slips the tie off from over her eyes and Erika keeps them closed, prepared for the room to be as bright as it was before the blindfold went on, but to her surprise she eases them open to see that there’s just low lamplight, cast from a lamp on a low table at the foot of the bed that she doesn’t recall seeing when she came in. The round-ended safety scissors are on it, along with a spare hank of rope, and a big bottle of water that makes her salivate just looking at it.  
  
She becomes aware that she’s shivering a little. Ivan bundles her up in a blanket and presses the bottle into her left hand, then sits down against the head of the bed and pulls her close against him, those clever fingers working at the knot in her right shoulder. It loosens almost immediately and Erika sighs with relief, grabbing for the screw cap of the water bottle and opening it to take a big drink. The water is blessedly cool on her scream-raw throat.  
  
Ivan keeps massaging her shoulders, reaches around to carefully unhook the rose collar, and sets it down beside them, not that there’s much room on the narrow single bed. Erika feels the soft press of his lips kissing each little scratch that it left and sighs with pleasure.  
  
“Do you love me now?” His voice still holds more than a hint of the Storyteller.  
  
“Of course I do.” Her shoulder still aches, her neck  _itches_ , and her clit’s going to be too sensitive to touch for hours, but she loves him very much.  
  
She feels the curve of his smile against the nape of his neck. “And they all lived happily ever after.”


End file.
